Is the US going bananas?

By John Freivalds

Published: TBD

Duluth News Tribune

Is the U.S. turning into a banana republic? That’s what column writer Melih Altınok wrote in the Daily Sabah. Many conservatives make the claim, too, even though few of them have lived in a third-world country.

Local View: 'Deplorables' was used prematurely

From the column: "(It also) got lots of pushback, and no one then called candidate Trump and his supporters fascists. The latter denunciation turned out to be long overdue."

By John Freivalds

Published 10/06/2022

Duluth News Tribune

“Deplorables” was the term used in a speech delivered by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on Sept. 9, 2016, at a campaign fundraising event. She used the word to describe half the supporters of her opponent, Republican nominee Donald Trump, saying, "They're racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic." Clinton admitted in her 2017 book, “What Happened,” that using the term was one of the factors for her loss.

Local View: Unlike in football, macho mania is not the way

From the column: "We’re not immune here in Minnesota, as our state once elected a governor who was the epitome of a macho man, the wrestler Jesse “the Body” Ventura."

By John Freivalds

Published 9/8/2022

Duluth News Tribune

Football season is upon us and with it the glorification of violence and the language and culture behind it. Yet football is only a small part of the brutal macho mania that has seized Minnesota and the rest of the country with an apparent belief that brute force and violent language is what is needed to make things happen.

Just look at U.S. Sen. Lindsay Graham’s recent warnings of violence if former President Donald Trump does not get his way.

Local View: Show the disturbing images to help stop gun carnage

From the column: "Pictures of the Nazi carnage changed the narrative about the Nazis. We need to see what the weapons of war do to children and innocents."

By John Freivalds

Published 8/8/2022

Duluth News Tribune

How often do we see this message across the TV screen after a mass shooting: “The following pictures may offend some viewers”” Yet when we are shown photos after a domestic mass shooting with war weapons, there is nothing to see, just flashing lights from patrol cars and police standing around (sometimes hundreds of them, as in Uvalde, Texas), some in SWAT gear.

Local View: Mask mandates are not akin to Communism or any otherism

By John Freivalds

Published June 06, 2022

As a World War II Latvian refugee from both Communism and Nazism, I find it hurtful to hear those terms applied to silly things and not the reflection of the inhumanity of a despotic reality.

The dictionary defines isms and phobias as discriminatory (and often hostile) beliefs and behaviors based on stereotypes, fear, and ignorance.